Look Out!

As Lara started walking away, Darius's senses started tingling, and his ears started to pick up a vibration from the ground. As the seconds went on, his ears zeroed in on the ground directly underneath Lara. It had been a shuffling noise akin to one moving large mounds of dirt. His sixth sense had started to scream danger, leading to Darius feeling extreme fear and pointing below his counterpart's feet.

The old Darius would have turned tail and run at that moment, but within that split second, his instincts had changed from 'I need to run away' to 'I need to warn her.' Within that short instant of time, Darius' character was revealed: he saw Lara and himself as one entity. It never even occurred to him that he was doing something out of character.

Darius could hear the rumbling of the earth beneath her feet intensify. He wondered whether he would even get a word out before she was attacked by whatever was coming. To his surprise, she reacted immediately and managed to leap away just in time. Within a split second, she was already beside him.

"Fast!" Darius did not have time to marvel more at her speed. It was here that…

Boom!

…

"What did I ever do to deserve this?" Darius screamed as he ran at full throttle away from the monstrosity chasing him. It was a spirit that looked like an earthworm, with its mouth's circumference covered in sharp teeth. This mouth was actually just an opening at the front of the worm while the teeth acted as drills, allowing it to freely move through the earth like a fish swimming in water.

The worm was incredibly thick. Each hole it created through its passing was at least three meters in diameter while it was at least twenty meters long. Its size wasn't the worst part. For the life of him, Darius could not figure out why the worm was chasing him!

At first, it had appeared under Lara, who had swiftly dodged its attack, but then the worm had single-mindedly rushed at Darius, completely ignoring the lass.

Darius cursed his misfortune as he ran for dear life while Lara ran after the duo. Like Darius, she was also confused. From time to time she would catch up to the worm and cut it with her two swords, causing some minor wounds here and there, but her taunting did nothing to sway its actions.

She was well aware that Spirits had the habit of targeting the weaker person first, but that was only if the gap was significant enough, which she did not think was the case here. Spirits had the ability to judge a human's strength with their beast-like intuition. Both Darius and Lara were humans of the first step of power, Courage, but Darius was a two-star Spiritknight while Lara was only a one-star Spiritknight. Under normal circumstances, this would make Darius the stronger one, but the lack of bloodlust said otherwise.

This difference made Darius the primary mark; thus, for its survival, the worm had designated him as its target, and then it will be able to face the real threat, Lara.

Lara knew that Darius had received two Dantians in the Knighting ceremony, but she believed that he, like most people, could only absorb one Dantian, so she was unaware of his current greater level of power. If she was, she would find the worm's action even stranger. His power level should have been enough for the worm to offset the threat from her killing intent.

Thanks to Overdraw, Darius was incredibly fast. That coupled with his incredible desire to live allowed him to pull out quite a bit of his body's full potential strength. Multiple times did the worm come close to consuming him, only for him to accelerate and dodge it just in time. Along with Darius's mysterious ability to sense the worm's presence underground, Darius had managed to survive his desperate fight. Lara could not understand how he was doing it. After all, he was merely a country hick with some noble blood in his veins, yet as time went on, Darius's identity had become ever more of an enigma to this arrogant princess.

Boom!

Darius narrowly dodged the worm's materializing from the earth by rolling forward.

"This thing is getting closer!" Darius started to get nervous because his chances of survival seemed slim.

Attack? Of course, the notion had briefly entered his mind, but his cowardice would not allow it. Unlike Lara, he was no seasoned warrior after all. Why, just a few days ago, he had never even been in any lethal battles of any sort. While screaming, he would look back from time to time, only to despair upon observing Lara's futile attempts at injuring the creature.

His cowardice overshadowed his logic, and he completely forgot that he was far stronger than she was, neglecting the fact that he had wiped out the Jade Sea Serpent by himself.

From time to time, a burning sensation, akin to a searing heat, would flow from the hammer to his hand. This was the hammer trying to activate the primary ability of Indomitable: Imperishable! Yet, Darius would have none of it. As far as he was concerned, running away was the only way to survive, so using the experience he had gained from the elder the previous night, he completely suppressed Indomitable, keeping only Overdraw active.

Lara was faster than Darius, so it was quite easy for her to catch up to him. She stayed a few meters away for good measure and yelled, "I have a plan to kill this worm, but for it to work, I'm going to need your help!"

Darius looked sideways for a split second in order to reply, but his feet immediately tripped on a rock. At this point, the worm underground shot upward. It had felt the vibrations from above ground indicating Darius' perilous situation. It accelerated with intense vigour, seeing this as its only chance to get rid of its prickly enemy. Darius cursed as he fell to the ground. All he could do was brace himself and roll up. His concentration had lapsed, and now, all he could think of was how he was about to die.

"Look out!" yelled Lara as she saw him fall in the most unfashionable way possible.